Rocky Road | Chocolate & Marshmallow Squares

Rocky road is an easy and delicious no-bake fudge-like chocolate treat stuffed with biscuits, marshmallows, nuts and sometimes even dried fruits. What I have shared here is a rocky road recipe without golden syrup and condensed milk. 

You can add anything and everything you like to have on it. From seeds, nuts, peanut butter, Turkish delights, mnms, Maltesers, etc. It is yours to customise your rocky road exactly the way you like.

Who doesn't love rocky roads? Rocky Road is a fun dessert for kids and adults and just like my Lazy Cake recipe this one too does not require any cooking at all! Just melt, mix and let the fridge do the rest. If you can melt chocolate perfectly then you can make this easy Rocky Road recipe. There are gazillion ways to make a rocky road and this is a basic one. I hope to try more variations in future...If you don't like to bake, then this dessert idea should be up your sleeves! 

Originally Published in Jan 2015. Updated the recipe and the content in Nov 2021. Rocky road recipe was the first recipe post on this blog and it was begging to be updated! 😁 I planned and made this batch so that I could try photography style outside my comfort zone. But guess what? I was not too happy with how I staged the pieces. And by the time I changed a couple of times, the bars started to sweat and melt because of the direct daylight🤦. I didn't have the patience to re-chill and re-arrange so just clicked a flat lay. 😂

I was in my early 20s when I got to taste marshmallows! Thanks to my US return friend's daughter (now she is finishing college 🤯) who introduced me to these mini marshmallows. She used to make me roast them over the stove and devour it. Since then to me, marshmallows are a medium to teleport to her mischievous eyes pointing at the pack of marshmallows in her amma's kitchen cabinet. I wish I was what I am now, I would have made some fun rocky road for her! 

What is inside a rocky road? 

Rocky road is predominantly made with melted chocolate and some kind of nuts and dried fruits. Depending on the region additional ingredients like digestive biscuits and marshmallows are also added. While most part of the world devours rocky road bars, you will find this as a popular ice cream flavour too. What I have shared here is a rocky road recipe without condensed milk and without golden syrup. 

• Chocolate: As this is a no-bake recipe, you can use any good quality milk chocolate that you like eating. Don’t use baking chocolate or compound chocolate. I have tried with dairy milk and even with Hershey semi-sweet choco chips. You may even try and mix milk and dark chocolate. 
• Butter: I have used unsalted butter but you can replace this with your favourite nut butter. 
• Honey: Traditionally the UK recipes use golden syrup which is hard to get here so I have used honey and they work great! 
• Biscuits: Cookies add a crispy texture to rocky roads. I have used a mix of digestive biscuits and Loacker Hazelnut bite-size wafer cookies. You can use any tea biscuits. 
• Nuts: For the crunch factor, add lots of nuts. Though peanuts are the classic choice, I have used hazelnuts. I roasted and peeled the skin before chopping them roughly. You can use any nuts of your choice or even make a mix of nuts.
• Marshmallows: These make the rocky road soft and chewy! You can use colourful mini marshmallows or any kind to suit the occasion. This time I got the classic size so had to cut them up. Use scissors to cut large marshmallows. 
• Optional additions ideas: dried fruits, dried coconut, jelly candies, gummies, glace cherries, mini easter eggs, biscoff, Nutella, peanut butter, etc.

How do you make a rocky road without golden syrup?

A best rocky road recipe involves melting the chocolate along with butter and honey or golden syrup using the double boiler method. Let that chocolate mix cool a bit before stirring in the mixture of crushed cookies, marshmallows, nuts or even dried fruits until coated. Tip the mixture on a lined tin and top it with more chocolate bars if you want and chill until set. Remove, slice and serve. There is no fixed ratio between chocolate and add-ins, as long as you can cover them in chocolate you can add the items. The more ingredients, the rockier else it would be a fudgy cake - which is not bad either! 😋 

Melt chocolate using Double Boiler method

A double boiler aka Bain Marie method is a cooking method used for transmitting gentle heat, like when melting chocolate. You can make your double boiler by finding two heatproof bowls, one larger than the other. You partially fill the bottom pan with water and bring this to simmer. Next, position the second bowl with ingredients over it so that it sits around the rim. This method will prevent the burning of chocolate. 

How long can you keep homemade rocky road?

The homemade rocky road can stay in a cool place or be refrigerated for as long as 2 to 3 weeks. As there are hardly any perishable ingredients used, it can stay chilled. But over time the marshmallows may become chewy and cookies soft but they are still fine to consume. You can freeze rocky roads wrapped in cling film and foil for up to a month. To thaw, unwrap and place in a container on the counter.  

📖 Recipe

Print Recipe

5 from 1 vote

Rocky Road | Chocolate & Marshmallow Squares

Learn how to make a delicious Rocky Road recipe using chocolate, biscuits, marshmallows and nuts. This is an easy no-bake fudge-like chocolate treat.

Prep Time15 minutes mins

Cooling Time2 hours hrs

Total Time2 hours hrs 15 minutes mins

Course: Dessert

Cuisine: Australian, British

Keyword: fridge cake, no-bake rocky road bars

Servings: 16 pieces

Author: Famidha Ashraf

Ingredients

• 250 grams milk chocolate approx 1½ cups
• 120 grams unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 100 grams digestive biscuits approx 7 biscuits
• 50 grams hazelnut wafer squares optional. see notes
• 100 grams mini marshmallows
• 50 grams hazelnuts roasted and peeled
• 50 grams dried fruits optional
• icing sugar to dust before serving

Instructions

Prep the ingredients

• Place the digestive biscuits into a plastic bag and crush them lightly with a rolling pin until crumbly with pieces of biscuit remaining.
• Roughly chop the wafers of your choice and keep them aside.
• Roughly chop any nuts of your choice and keep them aside.
• Use a scissor to cut large marshmallows into smaller pieces.
• Roughly chop the chocolate and keep them aside.
• Line a 7x7 brownie pan or a square pan with foil or baking paper.

Prepare the chocolate mixture

• Wipe clean a large heatproof bowl making sure there is no drop of water in it. Next, add the chopped chocolate, butter, and honey to that bowl and place it over a pan of gently bubbling water. Do not let the bowl touch the water. The steam from the water will aid in melting. Make sure the water doesn't boil over or splash into the chocolate mixture. This could seize the chocolate.
• Stir occasionally using a rubber spatula to help the butter and chocolate melt thoroughly. Remove from heat and let it cool for a minute.

Prepare the rocky road mixture

• Stir in the marshmallows, biscuit crumbs, wafers and nuts and everything else you want to add into the melted chocolate mixture and mix until every item is covered with chocolate.
• Transfer this mixture into the lined pan ensuring it is spread evenly. Use the back of the spoon to press down and spread the mixture to the corners.
• Chill in the fridge for 3 to 4 hours or overnight.

Serve rocky road

• Remove the set rocky road from the pan and use a sharp knife to cut it into portions. Serve the rocky road dusted with some icing sugar. Keep the leftovers refrigerated.

Notes

• You can skip the wafers and add more biscuits or nuts or dried fruits.
• You can add a mix of any nuts of your choice instead of hazelnuts.
• You can use golden syrup instead of honey.